Pacifier's, HELP!

oandmplus1

I am full of questions today.  DD is 3 and still uses her paci at night.  She has a very hard time sleeping without it, and cries out in the middle of the night if it gets lost in her blankets. We have been discussing getting rid of it for a while now, but things keep coming up like illness, then a broken leg. She has an ASD diagnosis and is non-verbal.

The other night at bedtime I realized I couldn't find a paci anywhere (our lovely dogs have developed a habit of stealing them and eating them). I was able to get her to sleep fine and thought maybe it was a good time to get rid of them. Around 10:30 she woke up screaming for it.  I tried everything to soothe her, every single method I had that usually calms her.

She had the worst meltdown I have ever seen. I finally ended up dragging both kids out to the store in the middle of the night with a screaming 3 year old to buy more pacis, which calmed her down right away and she slept fine the rest of the night.

How do we go about getting rid of this darn thing? It seemed like way more than just a tantrum to me, and I can't seem to find anything to take it's place.

oandmplus1

She has chewie's but they don't seem to do the trick, even though we clip them to her shirt all day per her SLP'S recommendation. We will have to try clipping away at it and see how that goes.
We do have a BCBA, and come to think of it we meet Wednesday to discuss goals so I will have to ask her. Thank you!

nomadica

Our son (ASD) was also VERY attached to his paci. What worked for us was to start a couple months before he turned 4 reminding him that he'd be a big boy at 4 and no more paci. We just kept reminding him every day or so. I still expected it to be a disaster, so you can't imagine my shock when he woke up on his birthday, gathered up all his pacis, and gave them to me to take away. I almost died. He slept fine that night and ever since. He's fairly verbal and has good receptive skills, so that obviously helps. But I think being warned well in advance and knowing it was coming was key for us.

abigail912

Both of my kids LOVED their paci.  With both kids I started trying to get them asleep without it and gradually got to where they could.  If they woke up in the middle of the night I would try to get them to sleep without it but if they got to really upset I would give it to them.  Whenever they fell asleep with the paci I would take it out of their mouth once they were in a deep sleep.  When we finally got rid of them completely both kids woke up a couple nights looking for them and cried a little but nothing major.  The process did take awhile.  My sister did the Binky Fairy idea.  She told her DD that she was a big girl and the binky fairy needed to take her binkies to a little baby that needed them and her DD put them all in the mail box one night for the fairy to take and didn't ask for one again.  My kids were not at a place to understand that concept. One a side note....My DS has not had a paci since this winter.  Now that the weather is finally, we were playing in the yard and DS found one that must have been buried in snow and mud all winter.  It was covered in all kinds of nasty and of course he popped it right in his mouth before I could get to him.  So gross!

hopecounts

The BCBA should be able to help.

But also have you tried social story type stories with her yet?

I use them with DD (3 yrs) she is emerging verbal and it can be hard to judge how much she gets as we read but for us the key is repetition, when we are using a social story we read it at least every other day the month or two before whatever we are preparing for. 

Which I think gives her time to process the language and put it together.

 I usually take the relevant pics then use word to create the story cheap and easy.

It may be worth trying in conjunction with whatever your BCBA helps you come up with.